


Larks and Nightingales

by Lobelia321



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobelia321/pseuds/Lobelia321
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bernard and John have an argument.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Larks and Nightingales

**Author's Note:**

> Who are these men? If you don't know, you should, because they are Denethor and Theoden in _TTT_ and _RotK_.

Title: Larks and Nightingales

Part: 1/1

Author: Lobelia; lobelia40@yahoo.com

Pairing: John Noble / Bernard Hill

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Shakespeare, *Romeo and Juliet*

Warnings/Content: RPS. More middle-aged men, but not plump this time: far from it.

Archive: Closer than Brothers. Anyone else, please just ask!

Feedback: Yes, please, I would love feedback! Anything, even one line, one word!

Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen.

Summary: Bernard and John have an argument.

Author's Notes: Who are these men? If you don't know, you should, because they are Denethor and Theoden in _TTT_ and _RotK_.

John Noble (Denethor), born in 1948, Australian stage actor and director (check out the broody face and the chiselled lips). Bernard Hill (Theoden), born in 1944, English film and TV actor, was the captain in _Titanic_ (check out the satanic eyebrows and piercing gaze).

Visual aids: [Bernard and John](bernardandjohn.html)

Inspired by Demelza, who invented Slashspeare, and by Brenda and Val who continue to unearth little-known hunks from the LOTR universe. Driven by my own middle-aged-hunk campaign, I just had to pair these two men. And thanks so much to Maura for her instant beta job, *g*!

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John and Bernard sat at the table and argued. In front of them, on big white plates, were the remains of Bernard's organic meal as well as two empty bottles of Jacob's Creek. John was passionately waving his fork in the air so that tiny flecks of broccoli flew through the air.

"No, no, no!" he cried. "You see that's where you're all wrong. You've got to try acting for the stage more, Bernard. You're too locked into the camera mentality!"

"Well, you would say that, John," countered Bernard, no less passionate and punctuating his words with stabs of his fork onto the table top. "You've only directed, what, about a million plays and practically lived on the stage these past three hundred years."

"Yeah, and you've prostituted yourself for film and television!"

"But don't you get tired of the stage, John? The same old plays over and over? What's so great about stage acting that I can't come up with before the camera?"

"For one, filming a movie completely chops up the unity of the story. As you well know. Shooting out of sequence! Shooting in fucking blue screen, for Christ's sake! Oops, pardon the French; I keep forgetting I'm talking to a polite Pom."

"Will you just go ahead and make your point, John?"

"Okay. Shooting out of sequence. Blue screen. Acting with a bloody tennis ball! No audience dynamic! And the dialogue, mate! Ninety-five per cent of movie dialogue is dire crap! Why settle for that when you can have the greatest writers of the English language lending you their words? No film script can better a good play."

"It's just a different skill, John. It just requires a different type of acting. I doesn't make one better and the other worse."

"Oh, yes, it does. Here, I'll demonstrate. Get up, Bernard. Come on." He took the fork out of Bernard's hand and pulled him up by the forearm. "Go on. Stand over there. Now, let's act a scene, and I'll show you exactly what I mean. You'll see."

John ran his finger along the bookshelf behind the couch. "Here!" he cried triumphantly. "Perfect! Some of the best lines you're ever likely to say." He thrust the volume at Bernard.

" _Romeo and Juliet_?" Bernard said incredulously, examining the spine. "And which role do I get to play that has such fantastic lines? The priest or the dad or which one?"

"No, you old fool. Romeo, of course."

"Romeo?" Bernard burst out laughing. "I can't do Romeo. Romeo's about five years younger than my daughter!"

"But that's just the beauty of stage acting, don't you see? You don't have to be young or pretty, like you do in the movies. All the close-ups, all that to-do about stars and cute young boys and looking exactly like your part -- forget about that! On stage, what counts is charisma. And you've got plenty of that!"

"D'you really think so?"

"Oh, yes, Bernard, you've got stacks of charisma. Come on. I know you can do this."

"Who'll you be?"

"Juliet, of course."

Bernard laughed again. "Juliet? You really take the cake, John."

"What do I keep on telling you? In theatre, it doesn't matter how old you are or what colour skin you've got or whether you've got a dick between your legs or a... Sorry, Bern, sorry, I'm being Australian again. Ahem, I mean, of course, what sex you happen to be."

"Right, then. I've got to see this. Middle-aged madman plays teenage virgin."

And then, Bernard gasped. John was doing something, subtly realigning his limbs and his torso, turning up his lips in a half-pout, arching his eyebrows and making his eyes soft. When he spoke, he didn't even attempt to make his voice falsetto but somehow rendered it very sweet without squealing.

"Well," stammered Bernard. "I'm impressed. How did you do that? That is fantastic."

"See what I mean?" crowed John, out of Juliet-mode.

"I do see. You've got the old charisma, all right."

"Oh, come on, Bern, you can do it, too."

"No, you were truly incredible. Because you really looked like a young virgin girl. I mean, well, you didn't _look_ like a girl. You look very manly yourself. I mean, oh dear, I'm tying myself in knots here. I mean to say that, ah, you yourself are very good-looking, very handsome in a manly way but when you turned yourself into Juliet just now, it was amazing how you became all girly and sexy at the same time. Well, I mean..." He stopped in confusion.

"You're getting the bug, though, aren't you, Bernard? The stage bug? See? You don't need any make-up or costume or any stupid special effects. It's just you and your body. So, let me show you the scene we're going to do."

John flipped the pages and handed the volume back to Bernard, pointing to a line. "You take the book. I know this by heart."

"Right," Bernard said. "Here goes."

He closed his eyes, relaxed into his body, let his arms hang loosely by his side and flexed his fingers. After a minute, he opened his eyes and licked his lips.

"Yeah, hey, that's not bad." John stroked his chin. "That's not bad at all. Hm, that's actually... Yeah. Pretty good. Pretty much like a gorgeous fifteen-year-old, just waking up to the delights of sexual passion. Beard and all, Bern! Now, move back a bit. Stand over there. You don't want to be too close to me to begin with. It's not like cinema. On stage, space matters. The space between the people has to be activated."

"Right." Bernard peered at the page. He cleared his throat and began,

"My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

John blushed. He actually blushed, he was that good. Bernard wasn't quite sure how a blush could possibly be visible to a theatre audience, most of whom would be sitting in an auditorium far removed from the stage, but there it was. A girlish blush.

Then John spoke, and it was Bernard's turn to blush because John's voice was as breathlessly sweet as treacle.

"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this.

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

At the end of the entire exchange, John held up his hand. "Okay, we're coming up to the kiss now. Their first kiss. So we're going to close that space up. But remember, don't just walk across it. That space has got to sizzle! That space has got to sizzle so much that by the time you get across it, it won't even matter whether we kiss or not."

"You are really good at this, John. I'm very impressed. You are a great director. You're even better than Peter."

"Oh, Peter's _cinema_ ," snorted John. "So. Go on."

They resumed their poses.

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake," said John-Juliet in what was barely a whisper. But a stage whisper.

Bernard crossed the room, very slowly, very deliberately, keeping his gaze fixed on John's eyes. He heard John give a little girlish gasp. The gasp did something to Bernard's body, something that he didn't want to think about too much but that no doubt could aid his performance of Romeo. Because surely Romeo, when walking up to Juliet, his heart pounding with desire, wasn't just carrying around a limp peter in that mediaeval hose of his.

"Then move not," Bernard breathed as he got up close to John, "while my prayer's effect I take. Mmmm."

"Mmmm."

"Well, that was..."

"Fabulous, Bern. You did great! I knew you would."

"I can't help thinking, though, about the kiss. It's true that it didn't feel like a screen kiss but I'm not sure it felt like a proper stage kiss, either. It felt more like a real kiss."

"Hm. Well, look, we can just do that part again. We'll just rehearse it once more."

"Good. Right. Back to stations."

Bernard went back to the other side of the room. John did his Juliet transformation and cooed,

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake."

"Then move not while my prayer's effect I take. Ah. Mmmm."

"Mmmm. Was that better?"

"Not sure. It still felt too real."

"We'll just rehearse it once again, then. But let's do away with the script for now. Let's just focus on the kiss bit."

Bernard pitched the book onto the couch and pressed his virginal lips to John's girlish ones. Well, the space between them was certainly sizzling. Not that there was a great deal of space.

"All right," Bernard panted, still holding onto John's not-at-all-girlish broad shoulders. "Isn't there, ah, isn't there some kind of bedroom scene somewhere later in the play? Something about a lark and a nightingale?"

"Yeah," replied John, not moving his hands from around Bernard's neck. "You remember that right. But it's not always shown as a bedroom scene. In the play, it actually just says that they are 'aloft with the ladder of cords'."

"Hang on. Couldn't we do it in a sort of experimental-theatre type of way? I seem to recall seeing plays, when I was still a student, where the whole stage was filled with naked people at some point."

"I know, Bern. The Sixties. I remember them, too. Showing your age there, Bern."

"Why don't we do that bedroom scene, then? Lark and nightingale? Where's the play?"

"Hm, I don't think we need a script for that scene. Do you, Bern? Mmmm. You taste good."

"You're right, John, I may know this one by heart."

"Open your mouth, Bern."

"Only if you close your eyes, John."

"Mmm. You've stopped being Romeo, haven't you?"

"Yes, and you're being much too... ah, manly, to be Juliet."

"Have I convinced you yet?" murmured John, biting Bernard's neck below the beard line. "That the stage is better than the screen?"

"Almost, John. But I think, mmm, if I could have just one last demonstration..."

They never rehearsed their bedroom scene. It turned into a couch scene instead. _Romeo and Juliet_ was crushed beneath their bodies and fell unheeded to the floor. A light bulb blew in the kitchen; nobody noticed, nobody cared.

"But yeah," said John half an hour later, breathing heavily and fondly gazing at Bernard through lazy eyes. "The larks and nightingales sure sang for me."

The End.

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If you enjoyed this story, please comment below.

18 April 2002 


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